Divergence
by Loriens-Scribe
Summary: Before the Birth of the Garde a group of Cepans broke away and formed their own society in order to avoid the laws. They may live under their own rules but it came at a price. Based on a treaty they formed with pitticus lore, every Garde child is removed from their dwelling "The woods" and taken away to the main city for training. They are never heard from again!
1. Chapter 1

**Fore note**

_I do not own the Lorien Legacies series or any of the characters created for that series. I do however own the main plotline for this story and a majority of the Characters mentioned in it. If you wish to use any of the ideas or plotline for __**Divergence**__ please ask! I hope you enjoy and remember to review._

**From the archives of Pitticus lore- The breaking treaty**

From this date onwards the Fifth day of Luvan 693 or September the 22nd 1701 earth time the group of cepans whom previously refused the Garde code (to give up ones infant) are granted the title of **Divergent Loric** and now have permission to form their own society on the outskirts of the main capitol.

They will be left to live out their lives in peace, ungoverned by Loric laws so long as they stick to certain terms and conditions (the code). If they do not abide by these rules or pose any risk to the main population they will be forced to surrender to our laws.

**Code**

Firstly, The Divergent Loric may not be employed or offered payment/charity of any form by the capitol or the surrounding cities! They have chosen to break away; they will find no support from the elders.

Secondly, it is now a crime for any Divergent Loric to enter the main city without permission. This includes the forest and hunting grounds it provides.

Lastly, as the cepans pose not risk they may be left in peace, however any garde offspring they produce will be removed in to the custody of the elders. It will be considered arming the divergent if a Garde was to be left among them and could eventually lead to war as well as an untrained Garde being a danger in itself.

Upon signing the breaking treaty I agree to enforce and follow the Code above – _Pitticus Lore_


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter One – Broken**

_It was on the same day the treaty of breaking was formed that the first Divergent Loric (112 of them in total) set off to what would become their new settlement. The Cepans renounced the titles "Cepan and Garde" since they no longer needed to differentiate between the two. They spent over ten years building a small town they named "The woods" which seemed appropriate since it was on the edge of Loriens largest rainforest. It was only when things began to settle down that the divergent loric encountered the first of their problems. They had no economy and very few people had jobs. People began to starve and the woods fell in to a state of complete poverty. Despite their pleas for help, the city turned the Divergent away as they had sworn they would do and was written in the Treaty of Breaking._

_The Divergent took over 50 years to form a solid civilisation, though a large percent of the population still lived in extreme poverty there was employment in the form of merchants and shop owns for the well off. The unfortunate worked in the mines and did handiwork in the slums. The population now stood at around 5,500 people which is less than one percent of Loriens total population. _

_The main focus of the story is set around 100 years after the divergent first broke away._

**Brom**

Well Hell! I cried out in pain as the palm of my right hand burned in searing pain as if it was being held under an open flame. I fell to my knees and plunged my hand deep in to the running stream in an attempt to counter the pain but no matter what I did it would not leave me; It clung under my skin turning my hand in to a glowing torch. The icy water turned my arm numb but still my hand burned on and on until part of me stopped noticing the pain as I accepted it. Slowly, I removed my hand from the water and nursed it against my chest, trying to rid some of the numbness from my arm. I fought the urge to look down, as if by not seeing it I could avoid the truth and somehow fight the change.

The change.

It hits one in every two of us around the age of puberty. There is no warning, one moment the kid next to you will be fine and the next day you will hear that they have been taken. There is no avoiding it and no predicting it, no amount of testing could ever warn you that it might come. You can't miss it when it happens though, you will find an arm missing (Invisible but still there) or find yourself standing metres from where you were a second ago with no idea how you got there. In some cases, Lights have burned out of kids palms and spread right across the entire hand. You develop a strange power, Legacies I believe they are called and then the authorities take you away from your family. Once a kid is gone no one ever sees them again, no one knows what happens to them in the city! Some people think they are killed, others say they are trained and made in to the military but I don't know and before today I had tried not to think about it too much.

Most families plan ahead for this eventuality and have a larger number of children, knowing that half of them will be taken away. I am the middle child in my family at 15 years old and the only girl; I have one older brother and a younger one. My mother works as a healer in the woods' only hospital or as the locals call it "The dying place" because very few people who can afford to go there survive. The poorest people have to stay at home as it costs each time you go to the Hospital and unless you are a wealthy merchant of shop keeper you will not make enough money in a year to pay for treatment. My father works as a hunter; killing wild animals in the woods and selling them on for money. We live in a small shack on the edge of the forest and because both my parents work and my father makes a money from hunting we are lot better off than some. It is not uncommon for a person to die of starvation in the woods, not everyone is as fortunate me.

At least I thought I was fortunate, as I sit by the stream deep in the forest I am forced to re think that. I hold back a sob as I consider what is about to happen to me in the next few hours and what I am going to have to tell to my family. When I get home I may have a few hours with my family before the authorities arrive, that would give me enough time to pack a bag and say my final goodbyes. No one knows how the authorities can tell a kid is going through the change, a black car with tinted windows just appears outside your house and then no one ever hears from you. Kids have tried to hide before but it is in vain, they can always find you if they want to. Sometimes, you can hear kids (both girls and boys) being dragged screaming out the house while the family tries to fight the authorities off but the authorities are too powerful. They have power like the changing kids do but theirs are stronger and they know how to fight whereas we are not allowed to train in the woods because we are Divergent so it would be breaking the code if we did so.

The code. Our ancestors signed it years ago so that we could live our lives in peace, ungoverned by the elders' rules. Before the woods, parents were force to give up all of their children and Powerless folk like us (Well is suppose like my parents now, I can no longer be considered powerless) were made to act as the trainers of the Garde. Back then we were known as Cepans but now to call someone a Cepan is probably the worst insult imaginable. Sometimes, when I am watching a starving child or a grieving parent I wonder if it was all worth it. Since we live in fear everyday is this really freedom?

I uncurl my hand and look down it my glowing palm. It still throbs but the pain is more manageable now and much less intense so I grab a strip of bandage material from the pack that I carry with me when I go scavenging and wrap it around my hands. The glow is just in one palm for now but I have no doubt it will spread. I have come to the decision not to tell my family what is happening to me. Instead I will go home and act normal; play fight with my younger brother and laugh with my older one so that way when the authorities come it will be quick and I can say I had enjoyed my last evening with them. My dad is following a hunting trail across the border and he won't be back in the woods for another week at least. My mother will be home but she will be too busy to notice anything much is up, she will just blame any odd behaviour on my teenage hormones.

Maybe, just maybe, I can make a run for it in to the forest before the authorities come! I know how to survive in here! If I go to the City I know there is a chance I could be killed or worse so why risk it? But deep in my heart I know the truth, once you hit the change the authorities can find you anywhere. No matter how fast I run they can run faster and teleport! They even have strange beasts named Chimereria or something like that that can run faster than any forest leopard and sniff you out from a mile away. The authorities always were white suits that look a lot like the ones rich people wear for diving but the material is ten times as tough. Both the men and women have this glow about them. It is probably because they are better fed than the rest off us.

I pull my black hiking pack around my shoulders and fasten the straps on my gloves. It is early winter and a thin layer of snow is starting to cling to the ground; all through the woods the yearly plague of hypothermia is hitting and people are dropping like flies. My black fleece keeps put most of the cold even though it is a bit threadbare now and my gloves stop my fingers from freezing off. It would be a nightmare for me to catch frostbite; my fingers would turn black and reek like a dead fox on a summer's day and eventually they would have to be cut off. Before the change hit I was climbing for fruit up one of the jungles trees, these are the last fruits to die off before the winter and I wanted to bring back and armful of them as a surprise for my oldest brother, it was his birthday last week. He is exactly one year older than me and at that age it is unlikely he will hit the change which is good news. I had been holding the tree one handed as I pushed fruit in to my pack then my hand had started to grow hot. At first I had thought it was just a splinter as I get them often enough off the rough bark but as I had climbed down to inspect my hand the burning had gotten more intense until I could have cried out with pain.

I stare up at the sky and calculate what time it is. School had finish about three hours ago so by my guess it is just gone five in the afternoon. I have another two hours before sun set and I intend to spend every moment of that with my family. Before I go anywhere I was the thin film of sweat from my face with water from the river. The girl that stares back in my reflection is pale with dark blonde hair and a defined jaw. Her eyes are an unidentifiable colour, perhaps a mixture of blue, green and grey. Her mouth is pressed in to a tight line as she bites her lip and she looks terrified. I run my wet hands through my hair to smooth it back as I work my lips in to a smile. It's time to act! I charge off towards the plumes of smoke that spew out of the open fire chimneys in the distance, completely unprepared for what awaits me there.


End file.
